What a Woman Wants (A Manley Maids Novel) by Judi Fennell Read Free Book Online Page A

beneath her hair.
    “Sean, what are you doing here? Didn’t you hear me? You have to watch the alpacas.”
    “Alpaca watching is not part of my job description. And your damn pig almost broke my kneecap at that last bolt of lightning.” He took a step into the room and looked at her shoulder. “A bird? You ran up here for a bird?”
    She huffed and shook her head, then skirted around him. “Yes, I ran up here for a bird. Didn’t you hear him screeching?” She headed toward the stairs. Rhett could get very temperamental, and Daisy could be overly protective of her lambs. Livvy couldn’t afford to have their wool damaged.
    She stopped on the second stair from the bottom. Actually, she
could
afford to have their wool damaged. Imagine that.
    Then she shook her head. It didn’t matter what she could afford; she didn’t need neurotic animals. She’d worked hard to give them a sense of security after the instability of their lives before she’d rescued them.
    She took the last two steps as Sean caught up with her. He followed her back inside the room to find—
    Oh, joy. Rhett and Scarlett had found a new way to ignore the storm.
    Right in the middle of the rug.

Chapter Six

    O H hell. The animals were
doing it
in the middle of the room. On the half-eaten rug.
    Sean started laughing. Insanity. Crazy, absurd insanity. Here he was in a room furnished with priceless antiques, planning to convert it into a reception room for no-expenses-spared weddings, and there was alpaca copulation going on. And one of the sexiest women he’d seen in a long time—whom he’d just kissed at great risk to his job and his company’s future—was standing there in almost see-through wet clothing with a parrot on her shoulder.
    A singing parrot. Whose off-key rendition of “I’m in the Mood for Love”
was hysterically appropriate.
    “Shh! Orwell! Bad boy! Bad boy!” Livvy tried to clamp the parrot’s beak shut. “Ow!”
    Yeah, she wasn’t successful.
    But Rhett, ol’ boy, sure was. With a back-shivering grunt, the alpaca removed himself from his lady, then took to preening around the room as if he’d just performed the greatest service in the world.
    Sean glanced at Livvy, whose nipples were
still
outlined beneath her shirt. He wasn’t about to begrudge Rhett one second of crowing. Lord knew,
he’d
do the same thing if it wouldn’t get him fired—making love to her
and
crowing about it, that was.
    Sean shook his head.
Mind back on the job.
Not
the woman.
Even if she
was
the job.
    And then the doorbell sounded.
    “I’ll get it,” he said, leaping over a baby goat, almost taking one to the nuts as the kid jumped at the same time.
    He left Livvy in the asylum and sprinted to the door, opening it as a flash of lightning outlined the man standing there like Lurch.
    “Can I help you?”
    Sharp eyes drilled him beneath an overhanging brow, rain dripping off an umbrella onto Sean’s shoes. “I’m here to see Miss Olivia Carolla.”
    “She’s a bit busy at the moment. I’m assuming you want to wait?”
    “Thank you. I’m Benjamin Scanlon, her attorney. Or, rather, the estate’s attorney.”
    Sean worked hard at keeping the grin off his face and the calculation out of his eyes. The attorney. The guy he’d been trying to talk to ever since Mrs. Martinson’s death. The one who held the keys to this kingdom. And who was about to hand them over to Livvy—though not if Sean could help it.
    “No problem at all. You can wait in here.” He directed the lawyer to the Victorian-era study. “Want some coffee or something? A beer?”
    “I’d love a beer, but in this mess”—the lawyer nodded as another crash of thunder reverberated overhead, complete with a bunch of snorts and whinnies from the room down the hall—“I’d better not since I’m driving. Coffee it’ll have to be.”
    It was just the excuse Sean needed to make sure Livvy was doing okay on her own with the zoo. And that they’d keep her occupied long enough